


Snow Day

by RosieTarnation



Category: Dickinson (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21702760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieTarnation/pseuds/RosieTarnation
Summary: Set a year after Season 1 ends, Austin is away on business and a blizzard has Sue stuck in her house.  Emily, being the great neighbor that she is, decides to stop by and check on Sue.
Relationships: Austin Dickinson/Susan "Sue" Gilbert, Emily Dickinson/Susan "Sue" Gilbert
Comments: 8
Kudos: 174





	Snow Day

Emily knocked on the door to Sue's house, pulling her sweater and cloak tighter around her. She'd only been outside for a few minutes, for the short walk between her house and Sue's.  
  
But it was freezing. A blizzard had been raging all night and well into the morning, presumably stranding Austin in Boston, where he’d been meeting with his father’s old clients to remind them that if they needed help in Amherst, Austin was their guy now. The blizzard also created a ton of housework. Emily had been up for hours, doing work around her own house to ensure they made it through. And there she stood on Sue's porch, soaked up to her knees from trudging through snow, clasping her cloak closed with one hand and gripping a basket full of supplies with her other.  
  
She didn't stand long at Sue's door, though, before it opened.  
  
"Hey-," Emily said, stepping in before even really getting the word out.  
  
"Can you take him?" Sue asked, handing her five-month-old son to Emily before she got a response.  
  
"Sure," Emily said anyway, simultaneously handing Sue the basket and taking baby Edward. She smiled, both enjoying having something so warm in her arms but also enjoying seeing him. "Hey there, Ned."  
  
"What are you doing here?" Sue asked, enjoying the first moment in what felt like a very long time when she wasn't holding a baby or doing a chore.  
  
"I thought with the weather, you might need some help," Emily said, looking at Sue. She had an awful lot of energy for someone who'd spent all night and day stuck in a house with a baby during a blizzard.  
  
"Thank you," Sue said, kissing Emily's cheek. She put a hand on Ned's back for a moment. Emily spent a lot of time with him and Sue loved it - Emily was right, she was a really good aunt already. "Emily, you're freezing."  
  
"It's really bad out there," Emily said.  
  
"And you're dripping," Sue said, taking Emily's cloak off her and then her sweater. "Come on, sit by the fire, get warm and dry."  
  
"Only for a minute," Emily said, making her own way into the sitting room where she knew there was a fire going. "I'm here to help."  
  
"Help with what?"  
  
Emily cocked an eyebrow at her, carefully sitting with Ned on the chair by the fire.   
  
"With him," she said. "With the house. It's the first blizzard you've been living here, I thought you might need help."  
  
Sue shrugged. "I've got it under control."  
  
Emily laughed a bit. "Of course you do."  
  
Now Sue cocked an eyebrow at her. "What does that mean?"  
  
"It means you're crushing this whole lady-of-the-house thing," Emily said. "It's been a month and my mother is still finding things to complain about your New Year's Eve party for."  
  
"That doesn't sound like I'm crushing it."  
  
"She's jealous you throw better parties than she does," Emily said. She bounced Ned in her arms a bit, knowing exactly how he liked to be held. "Isn't she, Ned?"  
  
"I learned a lot from her," Sue said, leaning back and getting comfortable. She did have things under control, but she also hadn't really sat down and relaxed in a while.  
  
"You know she's not here, right?"  
  
"Really," Sue said. "I always loved going to parties at your house. I want Ned to feel like that when he's older, like this is a place he wants to be in."  
  
Emily looked down at her nephew. He was looking at her intensely. It freaked her out a lot when she first met him - she never loved being stared at. But now she didn't mind. She liked it, even. She liked that this new person was figuring out the world, and she got to be a part of it.  
  
"I know everyone says he looks just like Austin, but I don't know, Sue," Emily said, looking at him right back. "I'm starting to see you in here."  
  
"Really? I think he looks like you."  
  
Emily looked up at Sue.   
  
This whole situation - sitting by the fire on a stormy winter's day, with Sue's baby in her arms, enjoying each other's company and the accompanying solitude - in another life, this would've been exactly what she wanted and this would've been something she could have had.   
  
She had spent so much of the past year learning and relearning and reminding herself that her and Sue's lives were so different. They were separate, but also they were closer than they'd ever been. Sue had everything she always needed - a husband, a home, a family. Emily had what she needed, too - her mother was losing hope that she would ever marry and was resigned, maybe even content, to the fact that Austin would be the only one of her children to marry. She was less concerned with trying to change Emily, and Emily was less concerned with her parents trying to change her.  
  
But every now and then, she'd find herself in a situation with Sue that she couldn't talk herself out of desperately wanting. She had accepted how things were, she had accepted that this was the best they were ever going to get and honestly, it was still pretty great. They were close, they had everything they needed, they were set.   
  
But then she'd sit with Sue and Ned by the fire and it _hurt_. She'd help Sue cook for one of her quickly-becoming-legendary parties and brush some flour off her cheek and actually feel her own heart break a small bit in her chest. She'd hand Sue a poem for her to review and find it hard to breathe, and she'd be handed an edited poem back and feel her chest constrict. She'd have moments where she had so much she wanted so badly to say about all these little moments and everything they could be that she'd clench her jaw so tight she'd swear she broke it.  
  
She had an amazing life and she knew it. She was lucky to have her family how it was, to have their money and privilege and position. She was lucky she had time to write, that she had access to materials, that her father didn't do more to stop her.  
  
But every now and then, something bled through. Something made it past all her walls and her defenses and safeguards and reminded her that while she was close, there were still some things she didn't get to have.  
  
And she knew Sue felt it sometimes, too.  
  
And that only made the _hurt_ worse.  
  
"Poor thing," Emily said with a laugh.   
  
Emily had learned to put all those walls up, sure. She'd learned to not only accept the best she could get, but also cherish it. She didn't need everything she wanted in order to be happy. Having some of it was better than none of it. She would never have a house with Sue, and she knew that. But these little moments, though they _hurt_ , would have to do. And they did.  
  
"Does it ever freak you out?" Emily continued, letting the tone shift. This was part of what she learned - she couldn't wallow in the hurt. She felt it, she nodded to it, she moved on. That was how she and Sue managed this. "He's a _person_. He could do _anything_."  
  
"All the time," Sue laughed. "He could stay in Amherst all his life and be a lawyer. He could become the president of the United States. He could invent something that I can't even conceive of right now. All those things are equally likely and it absolutely blows my mind."  
  
"What do you want him to do?"  
  
"Anything he wants," Sue said. She meant it, too, smiling as she said it. "I want him to do absolutely anything he wants."  
  
"Do you really not need help with anything around the house?" Emily asked. "Because I'm here, I'm warm now, I can do whatever."  
  
"Really, everything's done," Sue said. "It's easy when Austin's not here, I only have to cook for me and clean up after myself. Ned's almost on a schedule now, so it's not that bad."  
  
Emily shook her head, amazed. "I don't know how you do it all."  
  
Sue shrugged. "I've basically been training to be a wife and mother for my entire life. I guess it paid off."  
  
Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Emily looked at her, she could see that it was one of those moments when Sue's walls were breaking.  
  
Sue was happy with her life, they both knew it. She loved Ned, she knew Austin wasn't a bad roommate or husband, she enjoyed running her own house. She had more freedom than she ever had, with Austin's long hours and the end of that wife-and-mother training. She was actually doing it now. She wasn't being supervised and coached and judged in the same way. She was in the best position she could get herself in.  
  
But, still.  
  
"Yeah," Sue said after a little while. "Let's just sit here for a bit."


End file.
